Announcing Connectr’s Partnership with the City of London

The City of London has just announced a new task-force to tackle the lack of socio-economic diversity within the financial and professional services sector. The task-force is launched alongside new research commissioned by the City of London Corporation and authored by the Bridge Group, which found that almost nine in ten senior roles in financial services are held by people from higher socio-economic backgrounds. This compares with a third of the UK working population as a whole.

 

Connectr will be one of the three delivery leads partnering with City of London to deliver this project, along with PwC and Deloitte, to address this issue with a three-point plan.

The Three-Point Plan

The task-force will address the lack of socio-economic diversity by:

• Leading an industry consultation on how government, regulators and sector bodies can incentivise firms to take action.
• Creating a membership body for financial services where employers can benchmark against each other and share best practice on delivering socio-economic diversity at senior levels.
• Producing a productivity analysis to build the business case for increasing socio-economic diversity at senior levels in financial and professional services.

What does this mean?

This is a significant development for social mobility. As it stands, access to roles within financial and professional services unfortunately remains disproportionate. The recent research from The Bridge Group found senior roles in this sector are dominated by individuals from higher socio-economic backgrounds.

Furthermore, the report reveals that applications from candidates from lower socio-economic backgrounds take longer to progress — and there’s no statistical evidence suggesting this is due to performance issues.

The Impact of Lack of Diversity

The need for increased diversity in financial and professional services goes beyond business benefits. The research found individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds commonly feel they must assimilate to upper socio-economic culture. This impacts general productivity and general well-being, which in turn may have negative implications on their work.

How will we drive change?

However, we intend to build on our existing knowledge to change this. We know that it’s key for workforces to feel valued. With the development of our employee engagement platform Connectr, we support every candidate in achieving job satisfaction while aiding companies in diversifying their talent pools. We excel in nurturing diverse talent and setting them up for success, so businesses run more efficiently than ever.

And finally…

As an initiative focused on both the needs of businesses and social mobility, we couldn’t be more delighted to have been chosen by City of London to work on this project. Together, we’ll work towards a talented workforce within this sector, reflective of a diverse and integrated society.

 

Simon Reichwald, Strategic Lead for Talent at Connectr, commented:

 

“At Connectr we are passionate about supporting overlooked talent to both secure quality employment and then progress within their chosen career, and we understand the huge business benefits that a diverse talent pool can deliver. We are thrilled to have been selected by City of London to support its new social mobility task-force, and are confident that the membership organisation we help build will have the power to bring about real, meaningful change in the financial and professional services sector and beyond.”